Tonight I watched a double feature. The second movie was "Santo vs la Hija de Frankenstein" (1972), the 36th film in the Santo ouevre. Without the aid of fellow masked wrestler, the Blue Demon, Santo must rescue his girlfriend from the clutches of Frankenstein's daughter. Also a doctor, Freda Frankenstein has branched out. Not only has she created Ursus, a monster made from the parts of dead mean, but has also created a savage, carnivorous half-man, half-gorilla, and developed an anti aging serum, the effectiveness of which is for shorter and shorter durations after every use. What Fred wants now is Santo's blood. Literally. From a small sample she'd obtained at one of his wrestling matches, she determined that he possessed the TX factor, a special gene that gives him accelerated healing abilities and also means he will never grow old, much like that fictional superhero, Wolverine of the X-Men. She may be on to something. Santo was born in 1917, which would make him 55 in this movie, and while he seems a little sluggish in some scenes, he's still a formidable opponent. Santo defeats both monsters, Freda herself, her henchmen, and rescues his girlfriend, and her sister (several times) and still manages to win the middle-weight title at the end. Like most of the Santo movies, this one was a lot of fun. This would have made a perfect double bill with "Jesse James meets Frankenstein's Daughter" (1966), in case anybody's trying to decide what to watch this weekend.
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